Blue

This morning, Erica pushed Blue into a cat carrier, and we took him to the vet.

Blue is an unaltered male. He is generally a nice cat, but , like all unaltered males, (myself included) he tends to show agressive behavior and marks his territory with very smelly urine. A male cat who is not neutered in his first year will run off after the smell of she-cats as soon as he gets a chance and will never return. When Blue came to us he was starving and freezing. We fed him for a month before Erica was able to get him into the house.

Blue knocks around the other cats. Saturday he bit Faffrd on the leg and there was blood everywhere. He likes Erica to pet him, but will swipe her with a sharp paw if she does it too long or touches something that bothers him. He has hair trigger reflexes and will freak out if he feels threatened. He only comes near me when I am feeding other cats, and if I try to touch him, he looks at me as though I was trying to kill him.

We got up this morning and didn’t feed any cats. Blue came up to the bedroom and cried with a pitiful small meow that is very meek and mild compared to his size and strength. Erica and I got dressed and she went into the kitchen. The cat carrier had been next to the food bowls for a few days and I had sprayed it with cat face pheromone analog. This is a calming agent and smells to a cat like the pheromone that the glands on their cheeks produces. They use this to mark their favorite places.

Blue went right in the carrier without argument. This was a big surprise. He was obviously once a show quality cat who had escaped and maybe was used to the carrier.

I put the carrier in the car and drove him to the vet. On monday mornings you don’t need an appointment to alter cats. Blue never complained. He seem at home in the carrier. Our other cats scream bloody murder when we try to take them to the vet.

We’ll get a special discount on the procedure because he’s a stray. We also get a Multi-Cat discount (to my eternal embarassment).